We all must pray for our nation every day. Or we will no longer have a nation to pray for..

Stories of the Day

An honest accounting from a reporter on the Left. “White House officials brought this House investigation on themselves. They could have avoided it by simply telling the truth. Unfortunately, that was too much to ask.” Kirsten Powers: Diverting Benghazi probe

Transparency. “The Obama administration continues to withhold documents that could shed light on how U.S. officials produced its false narrative that the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi arose from a non-existent protest over a video, according to a conservative watchdog group. The documents reveal “that the Obama administration is still refusing to provide the full details of how top officials arrived at the now-discredited talking points released to the public following the deadly assault on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya,” Judicial Watch said in a statement.” Watchdog: White House hiding more Benghazi documents

If you want the best commentary on Benghazi read Hugh Hewitt. “Whatever the make-up of the Select Committee, I hope they begin their hearings with a day of hearings devoted to learning the biographies of the men murdered that night –Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Daugherty and Ty Woods, as well as the names of the wounded, with testimony from family and friends on why they served. The days that follow should bring forward the background on Libya, both as to Qaddafi and his rule (including the de-WMDing of the country after the Iraq invasion) and the fractured aftermath, the rise of the Islamists in the country and specifically in Benghazi, and the mission Stevens was on that night before turning to the actual events of that night and their subsequent manipulation and cover-up. (That there is a cover-up cannot be seriously debated after the release of the Rhodes memo just last week.) As Paul Ryan notes below, it would a very large mistake for Democrats to turn their backs on the dead and to ignore the cover-up in a last gasp effort to protect the president and former Secretary of State Clinton from accountability for their actions (and inaction) that night and in the weeks and months leading up to it. But if they do, put the five empty chairs at every hearing and proceed. The Speaker’s job is not to please Nancy Pelosi but to guide the House in its oversight function. Candor by the Administration would have made a select committee unnecessary. A cover-up compels its creation and methodical operation through to complete understanding of the events surrounding Benghazi.” Naming The Benghazi Committee

Democrats as well as Republicans agree, this is a travesty of the highest order. “As the news surfaced on CNN late last month that up to 40 veterans had died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system, patients allegedly added to a secret waiting list to cover the VA’s tracks, some lawmakers cried out for immediate congressional oversight. Lives were at stake, they maintain, and emergency hearings should be convened to prevent any more veterans from falling through the cracks of a potentially plodding internal investigation. The sense of urgency and unity that surrounded the claims backlog has been harder to find in this latest scandal, stoking disturbing questions about whether the administration is hoping or even encouraging that the crisis take an extended rest on the back burner.” ‘Where Is the Urgency While Our Veterans are Neglected?’ Administration tries keeping down the volume on scandal over the VA waitlist deaths, but the tragedy isn’t confined to Phoenix.

Why do Democrats hate finding out the truth? “The House on Wednesday voted to hold a former Internal Revenue Service official in contempt for her refusal to answers questions about the agency’s conservative-targeting scandal. Lois Lerner headed the agency’s Exempt Organizations division when it controversially targeted conservative nonprofit groups applying for tax-exempt status. But she has repeatedly refused to answer questions when called before Republican-led House committees investigating the scandal, citing her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and avoid self-incrimination. The GOP-run House, along a partisan-line vote of 231-187, passed a resolution holding her in contempt of Congress for not cooperating with the committees. Only six Democrats voted in support of the charge, while no Republicans voted against it.” House holds ex-IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt

I don’t mean to scare you but I thought you should know… “An unsettling series of events arguably bearing on national security transpired last week that the MSM hastened to paper over. On April 30, the FAA, as a consequence of “computer glitches”,halted outgoing flights at LAX as well as other airports including PHX, SFO, SJC, SLC, LAS, and SAN. [Snip] On May 6, Mac Slavo, writing at SHTFplan (linked at Drudge), followed NBC’s reporting with:

The Air Force officially denied that it was a U-2 spy plane, claiming they found the glitch but provided no reason for what caused it:

It’s still not clear why the U-2 flew into the L.A. Center’s airspace, or why it didn’t give advance warning of the flight, as per usual. According to NBC News, the nearby Edwards Air Force Base and NASA’s Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center (located at Edwards) “have been known to host U-2s.” [Snip]

With the revelation this week that Russia has deployed strategic bomber fleets for fly-by’s along our West Coast to gather intelligence and test their capabilities, is it possible that someone flipped a switch to see what would happen?

The Air Force likely knows what caused the outage but refuses to share details, which suggests that either the United States was engaged in a military exercise and they want to keep it under wraps, or, it was the Russians and going public could further inflame the already heated geo-political climate.

Churning out Leftists one class at a time. “Condi Rice will not be this year’s commencement speaker at Rutgers University after all. Due to the controversy generated by some students and faculty over Rutgers’ decision to invite the former Secretary of State, Rice decided to back out, explaining that she didn’t want to be “a distraction” at a college graduation. [Snip] A college education is, or is supposed to be, an education into the best of what students’ civilization has to offer, an inheritance, comprised as it is of millennia worth of achievements both intellectual and moral, at once encourages and requires for its appreciation the cultivation of the virtues of head and heart, mind and character. As the situation at Rutgers clarifies for all with eyes to see, this civilizing mission has been radically turned on its head. Coercion and intimidation, after all, are the tried and true methods of choice of the savage, the barbarian. Infinitely worse, though, is that it is faculty—those entrusted with taming the beast that is the next generation—that have instructed their students in the art of wielding these weapons as they crusade for one cause after the other. And university administrators cower. This is the academic world today.” Rice, Rutgers and Academia Today

Amnesty

Click on over and read these “Dreamers’” stories. Two words: Social Justice. “Many in the Republican Party don’t understand the political ramifications of amnesty. If they did, they wouldn’t support it. GOP reform advocates don’t understand that Democrats are pushing immigration reform because they want the country to turn permanently Democrat and to lurch leftward and unhook from America’s founding principles of individual liberty and limited government. Republicans who support amnesty don’t understand the inertia of culture. They think the new citizens who will benefit from their amnesty can be reasoned with and persuaded by the force of argument to vote for Republicans. Seriously. The problem is these former illegal aliens and their children won’t even see the GOP narrative. Culture is a more powerful force than reason, and certainly more powerful than the Republican Party’s ability to generate and penetrate with a narrative. Race groups like LULAC have built a cultural edifice around these populations that no RNC Growth and Opportunity Project tweet will penetrate.” Hey GOP, Meet Four Dreamers Who Want Your Amnesty

Big, Corrupt Government

Our hard-earned tax dollars at work. “The Environmental Protection Agency has not been firing employees for watching pornography and falsifying federal documents, according to California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa. “How much pornography would it take for an EPA employee to lose his job?” Issa asked EPA officials, including the agency’s second-in-command, testifying before the House Oversight Committee. Issa chairs the committee. “This individual spent four consecutive hours on a site called ‘sadism is beautiful,’” Issa pressed the EPA employees. ‘You are running an organization from which no one can get fired.’” EPA Employees Not Fired For Watching Pornography, Stealing Money

“The EPA’s Office of Homeland Security may have begun innocently enough, but was turned into something sinister by the Obama administration. It became an umbrella political hit squad, squashing potentially damaging investigations, intimidating witnesses, and interferring in the operations of the inspector general’s office, It reports only to the EPA administrator and is thus outside the normal chain of command at the agency. Sounds like the old East German Stasi. EPA administrator Gina McCarthy should be fired immediately and the homeland security office disbanded. This is intolerable behavior from anyone in government, much less from an agency with so much power.” Startling testimony of corruption and wrongdoing at EPA by IG’s office

We truly are in the best of hands. “When the IRS was targeting conservative groups seeking tax exempt status for special scrutiny, they demanded the list of donors supporting those groups in 17 cases. Despite assurances from the agency that the lists had been destroyed, a search requested by Congress revealed that at least 3 lists had survived. And of the donors on those lists, fully 10% of the individuals had been audited.” IRS audits 10% of Tea Party donors

Bureaucrats doing what bureaucrats do… “The Department of Housing and Urban Development is planning to focus groupLGBT people to determine if their is bias in rental housing for this class. According to the Washington Free Beacon:

“The department posted a 30-day notice in the Federal Register on Monday, explaining its intention to interview 60 LGBT potential renters and 15 heterosexual renters, and document their experiences in big cities.

“The department is conducting this study as part of a larger effort to study housing discrimination,” the notice said. “As part of that research, the department would like to learn more about the process that people use to search for housing.”

“Specifically, we are interested in the manner in which people identify themselves as lesbian, gay, or transgender when searching for rental housing,” HUD said. “The full project is to conduct in-person testing for lesbian and gay people in at least two major metropolitan rental markets and transgender people in at least one market.” [Snip]

The Left is gearing up for a major push in this area, the next “civil rights” struggle, intended to make gender specifics a thing of the past. The Brave New World they seek will be a place where the individual gets to be his own god, where a man clicks his heels together three times and says “I want to be a little girl” and voila! Her fondest dream has come true. A world where the will triumphs over the tyranny of reality. Where self-delusion aided by science serves as the new high priest for the god of Man and Womyn. Studies like this one are designed to give ammunition to the activists for future battles. The “researchers” know that LGBT tenants will complain bitterly of theirtreatment no matter what; they know that what they are doing is outside of the norm and salve their own consciences by directing their pain outward. There will be much talk of subtle discrimination, micro-aggression, meaning none that is actionable and yet it will be too much, according to the Progressives. There will be a push for new laws and regulations. In the end not just tolerance but celebration will be demanded of others.” HUD Looks for Housing Discrimination for LGBT

Boko Haram

This is what real evil looks like.Emphasis mine. “The world has rarely seen a terrorist group like Boko Haram. They have taken barbarity, cruelty, and inhumanity to a whole other level. Not content with murdering Christians in their churches throughout northeast Nigeria,the terrorists, kidnapped 276 schoolgirls, planning on selling them as child brides to other jihadists, and they have now attacked the town of Gamboru where the military set up a base to search for the missing girls, killing more than 300 civilians in cold blood.” More than 300 massacred in Nigerian town used as base by military to find abducted girls

“If there is any silver lining to the horror occurring in northeastern Nigeria, it is that Boko Haram’s kidnapping of several hundred Nigerian school girls—and the leader’s threats to sell them off like chattel—may be a bridge to far for even those sympathetic to more militant strains of Islamism. And make no mistake, what Boko Haram is doing is rooted in Islam, albeit an archaic and twisted interpretation of it far from the mainstream. Indeed, anyone who denies the religious component has simply ignored the statement of Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram’s leader and the man apparently responsible for the kidnapping, in his claim of responsibility:

My brethren in Islam, I am greeting you in the name of Allah like he instructed we should among Muslims. Allah is great and has given us privilege and temerity above all people. If we meet infidels, if we meet those that become infidels according to Allah, there is no any talk except hitting of the neck; I hope you chosen people of Allah are hearing. This is an instruction from Allah. It is not a distorted interpretation it is from Allah himself. This is from Allah on the need for us to break down infidels, practitioners of democracy, and constitutionalism, voodoo and those that are doing western education, in which they are practicing paganism…

We know what is happening in this world, it is a Jihad war against Christians and Christianity. It is a war against western education, democracy and constitution. We have not started, next time we are going inside Abuja; we are going to refinery and town of Christians. Do you know me? I have no problem with Jonathan. This is what I know in Quran. This is a war against Christians and democracy and their constitution, Allah says we should finish them when we get them.” The Backlash Against Boko Haram

Emphasis mine. “Under then-Secretary Hillary Clinton, the U.S. State Department repeatedly refused to add the Nigerian al-Qaeda affiliate group Boko Haram – the organization responsible for the recent kidnapping of more than 300 young girls – to its official list of terrorist organizations. [Snip] Now with Boko Haram in the international spotlight and Clinton positioning herself for a presidential run, she has forcefully demanded U.S. government action to fight against the Islamist group. ‘Access to education is a basic right & an unconscionable reason to target innocent girls. We must stand up to terrorism,’ she tweeted on Sunday. ‘Boko Haram’ is a loose translation of the Hausa-language phrase ‘Western education is sinful.’ She said Wednesday night during a Ford Foundation event in New York City that ‘the government of Nigeria has been, in my view, somewhat derelict in its responsibility for protecting boys and girls, men and women.’ ‘They need to make it a priority to do everything they can to try to bring these girls home safely,’ Clinton said, ‘and that, I believe, requires assistance from others including the United States.’ That tepid condemnation, a day after she called the kidnappings ‘an abominable … act of terror,’ stands in sharp contrast to those of some who served with her in Congress.” Revealed: Hillary Clinton’s State Department refused over and over to brand Al Qaeda group that kidnapped 300 girls in Nigeria as ‘terrorists’

California

Politicians refusing to do the hard stuff, again. “California currently is enjoying a budget surplus — on a cash-accounting basis. That surplus was made possible in no small part by putting off payments to the nation’s two largest pension plans, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS). Those two pension funds already have something north of $300 billion in unfunded liabilities between the two of them, and they need billions of dollars every year in additional funding just to avoid going even deeper underwater. California is predicting a $3.2 billion surplus for 2014–15, but the state needs to put at least $5 billion into its pensions to stay even. It is not doing so, which means that all Governor Brown has accomplished is to push today’s pain into the future, when it will be endured with interest.” The Fool’s Golden State: On fiscal reform, Jerry Brown should listen to Jerry Brown.

Well, will wonders never cease… “Nevertheless, CTU President Karen Lewis noted in her statement that Common Core is classic government overreach. “I agree with educators and parents from across the country, the Common Core mandate represents an overreach of federal power into personal privacy as well as into state educational autonomy,” Lewis said. “Common Core eliminates creativity in the classroom and impedes collaboration. We also know that high-stakes standardized testing is designed to rank and sort our children and it contributes significantly to racial discrimination and the achievement gap among students in America’s schools.” CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION JOINS OPPOSITION TO COMMON CORE

Oh what a debate this would be! “Finally, a well-known personality on the right has challenged the untouchable education change agent and Common Core supporter Michelle Rhee. In response to Rhee’s praise of the Common Core Standards on Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier, conservative political commentator Michelle Malkin wrote that she would be willing to go on the air to debate the school reformer. During the Baier interview, Rhee repeated the talking points that the CCS are internationally benchmarked and that every school district has the ability to choose its own curriculum to fit the standards. Neither of these assertions is true. There is no proof that Common Core has met international benchmarks, and most available curricula and assessments have been created for the standards. Where’s the choice in curricula?” Michelle Malkin Wants to Debate Michelle Rhee on Common Core

Crony Capitalism

Just say no to “crony capitalism.” “Now comes a miner by the name of Mike Lee, who last week delivered a powerful conservative case against crony capitalism. In his speech Senator Lee defines crony capitalism (policies in which government twists public policy to unfairly benefit favored special interests at the expense of everyone else); identifies specific cases of it (federal financial regulations, sugar subsidies, our education system, and the Affordable Care Act, among others); and explains why it is antithetical to true conservatism. Senator Lee also identifies policies that would combat cronyism, including tax, budget, and regulatory reform, ending special tax treatment for the energy sector, protecting taxpayers from the implicit health-insurer bailouts in the Affordable Care Act, modernizing federal labor laws, doing something about “too big to fail,” and more. “Americans intuitively understand that crony capitalism is not a form of private enterprise,” according to Lee, “it’s a form of public corruption.” He went on to say, “It seems to me that a principled, positive agenda to remove government-created barriers to upward mobility and middle-class opportunity – to level our economic playing field and put economic elites back to work creating jobs and growth for everyone else – represents everything conservatism should stand for.” I agree; and I hope more conservatives will rally to this good cause.” The Conservative Case Against Crony Capitalism

The Culture

The mainstream media Thought Police strike again: There’s apparently no room for Christians at HGTV, at least those who publically profess their beliefs. I wrote them a note this morning telling them that I can ban them, just as they have selected to ban the Benham Brothers. “The Benham brothers issued a statement early Thursday saying they are “saddened” by HGTV’s decision. “The first and last thought on our minds as we begin and end each day is; have we shined Christ’s light today? Our faith is the fundamental calling in our lives, and the centerpiece of who we are. As Christians we are called to love our fellow man. Anyone who suggests that we hate homosexuals or people of other faiths is either misinformed or lying. Over the last decade, we’ve sold thousands of homes with the guiding principle of producing value and breathing life into each family that has crossed our path, and we do not, nor will we ever discriminate against people who do not share our views.” The brother also said: ‘We were saddened to hear HGTV’s decision. With all of the grotesque things that can be seen and heard on television today you would think there would be room for two twin brothers who are faithful to our families, committed to biblical principles, and dedicated professionals. If our faith costs us a television show then so be it.’” Benham brothers: ‘If faith cost us TV show, so be it’

The Economy

Please repeat after me: “By design, Leftist policies do not grow economies. By design, Leftist policies do not grow economies. By design, Leftist policies do not grow economies…” “As the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) economy nears the end of its sixth year, one thing we can say for certain is that the “fundamental transformation” President Barack Obama, Senator Harry Reid, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and their party have long wished to impose on these United States has made measurable progress. Democratic Party housing policies caused the recession. Obama’s conduct during the 2008 campaign and the presidential transition period lengthened it. His administration’s failed 2009 stimulus plan, followed by over five years of cronyism, demagoguery, and regulatory zealotry — now briskly advancing into bald intimidation — have slowed the alleged recovery to a crawl and exacerbated the very income inequality the left routinely denounces. If there was a record for most economic reports issued which are worse than they initially appear, this bunch would hold it by a wide margin.” The GDP (Gosh-Darn Pathetic) Economy

Elections

We can only hope. And pray. “The serial fascination with celebrity politics – or, if you prefer, identity politics – moving on from race to gender, has appeared seamless as Hillary Clinton, with fragrant garlands inevitability headlining her trellis, has been anointed to succeed Barack Obama. The electorate saddled up to ride another identity pony has been undeterred by the fiascos of the Obama presidency, either not paying attention or expecting something different the next time around. An economy in shambles, historic joblessness, legislative debacles, constitutional breaches, the ObamaCare catastrophe, and abject foreign policy meltdowns – all of this is accented by increasing distrust in big government from IRS, Department of Justice, and NSA domestic spying scandals. Wrapped in dissembling and divisiveness — the hallmarks of the Obama presidency — flippantly dismissed by the mainstream opinion-makers who have escorted Hillary as the next celebrity darling to redo all of it. Or repeat all of it. Until Benghazi. Benghazi not only was the place where four Americans were murdered. Benghazi was the place where celebrity died, marked by cowardice, incompetence, complicity, and casual disregard of duty. Until Benghazi, Hillary requited the fascination with her as the rightful celebrity next in line for the White House. Unable to claim any accomplishments, despite the apparition of an impressive résumé, Hillary at least avoided having to account for any monumental screw-ups. After all, celebrities don’t have to be accountable for anything other than sustaining their celebrity. Until Benghazi. [Snip] Hillary’s ascension died that night in Benghazi. Stalled not by a glass ceiling, but by a bloody battle waged on the consulate compound and CIA Annex rooftop. The celebrity-in-waiting couldn’t be bothered. Stevens’s, Woods’s, Doherty’s, and Smith’s deaths will not have been in vain if celebrity politics also expired that night.” When Celebrity Politics Died

Sure you did, Mr. Crist. “Charlie Crist’s realization that the Republican party was racist just so happened to coincide with the moment Marco Rubio was set to beat him for the Senate nomination, according to the former Florida governor.” Crist: I Left the GOP Because of Its Racism

“For the record, Crist left the GOP after getting his rear end handed to him in a primary fight — by a Hispanic named Marco Rubio. He also got got his rear end handed to him in the same general election, by the same person. If that seems like an odd application for the race card, well, you haven’t paid much attention to Crist and his endless ambition for political power. Even Huffington Post snickered at this claim. In any rational world, a politician this openly dishonest would end up in political oblivion. Crist and Kay Hagan will give voters that opportunity this fall, and let’s hope they take it.”Crist: Ileft the GOP over its racism, or something

I really DO hate the gloating. “I dunno. If I were an amnesty shill, I’d be hugging every illegal in sight this morning to celebrate Renee Ellmers’s victory in NC-2. Pop the champagne, Mark Zuckerberg! Reform is coming. But seriously — there is, most assuredly, an “us versus them” mentality between donor-class Republicans and grassroots conservatives, and it goes both ways. There wouldn’t be a tea party without it. How many posts have I written this year alone about Boehner strategizing to stab the base in the back on immigration? The donor class is socially moderate, supports big business and government cronyism as needed, is very much unwilling to tolerate shutdowns or debt-ceiling standoffs even in a noble cause, and of course is proudly pro-amnesty. Grassroots righties are socially conservative, disdain cronyism, are willing to stand on principle even it hurts the party or the economy in the short term, and oppose amnesty. (Foreign policy is more of a muddle.) The two sides agree broadly on lowering taxes and deregulation; that’s the linchpin for the whole coalition, but it’s a cold peace maintained by sides that see each other as culturally and philosophically suspect. You’re bound to see that on display to some extent after contested primaries. Again, imagine the roars of exultation on the right if Bevin beats McConnell. QED.” Palin: Stop gloating over last night’s primaries, establishment Republicans

Both political parties are guilty, but I called out the quote on Senator Harry Reid because he has really got to go… “There is no “progressive aristocracy,” as this column previously asserted, and there are no fancy titles passed down from one generation to the next, no automatic ascension to lucrative positions of power based simply upon one’s genealogy. The accusation that there’s an American political aristocratic class is nonsense. Just ask Senate majority leader Harry Reid; or his son Key, formerly a registered lobbyist with Patton Boggs LLP and Lionel Sawyer & Collins; or his son-in-law Steve Barringer, a registered lobbyist, formerly with MGN Inc. and currently with Holland and Hart LLP; or his son Rory, who was elected to the Clark County (Nevada) Commission in 2002 and was the Democrats’ gubernatorial candidate in 2010.” Family Ties: We have an opportunity society—at least for the children of lawmakers.

I still think the Tea Party needs to rebrand. The media has had six years to make the party to be full of crazy folks and for the most part, it has worked—for the low information voters anyway. “Yes, there are some powerful RINO Republicans who are working against Tea Party interests. But when I look at the actual Tea Party candidates and the actual races they actually lose and how and why, there’s no need to invoke some nefarious conspiracy. The candidates they field had better be smart, appealing, and not so numerous that they split the conservative vote. That’s not rocket science to figure out, although it’s not all that easy to accomplish. So stop whining about what victims you are and start figuring out how to win. One more thing: Democratic candidates have figured all of this out, and their new tack (which they attempted in their campaign against Tillis, who they—rightly, I believe—saw as their most dangerous opposition) is to fund ads aimed at convincing conservatives that the strongest GOP candidate is too moderate and is really a RINO. It didn’t work effectively enough against Tillis last night, but it’s worked before in other races and has led directly to Democratic victories. Divide and conquer.” Tea Party problem: too many choices

Freedom of Speech

“Despite some alarm on the right that ICANN will fall into the hands of China, Russia or the UN, both ICANN and the NTIA have been clear that they will not agree to transfer oversight responsibilities to any government entity or to the United Nations. What is not clear is what entity is qualified to assume this function or whether ICANN might wind up without an oversight body altogether. [Snip] Two legislative bills are now in the works to prevent the Obama Administration from moving oversight of ICANN out of US hands. The first is a bill sponsored by Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, which would stall the transfer until the Government Accountability Office could do a study on the transfer’s impact. The second bill, sponsored by Congressman Mike Kelly, would prohibit the administration from making the transfer without congressional approval. Because ICANN has no control over website content, fraud or email spam, some on the left erroneously assume that this precludes the possibility of stifling free speech on the internet. Others naively believe that if attempts at censorship through domain name assignments were to occur, it would be met by “stiff opposition” from domain registry operators and ISP’s…. as if this would be sufficient to stop the likes of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and other tyrannical free speech oppressors.”Yes, ICANN

Good. “Freedom of speech and the press took two steps forward and one back Tuesday. The good news came from Wisconsin, where U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Randa put an end to the infamous “John Doe” investigation unleashed last year by vengeful local Democrats against political activist Eric O’Keefe, the Wisconsin chapter of Club for Growth and 28 other conservative political groups. Led by Milwaukee County Attorney John Chisholm, Special Prosecutor Francis Schmitz and three others, the defendants used police-state tactics to gather evidence of alleged campaign finance crimes and slapped a gag order on O’Keefe and the other targets to prevent them from telling anybody but their lawyers what was happening. The “crime” O’Keefe and the others were alleged to have committed was taking positions shared by Gov. Scott Walker during his 2012 recall election campaign and creating issue ads advocating those positions to voters. The Democrats claimed that constituted illegal campaign coordination under Wisconsin law. In a ringing 26-page opinion, Randa disagreed, saying the Democrats were improperly “rendering the plaintiffs a subcommittee of the Friends of Scott Walker and requiring that money spent on such speech be reported as an in-kind campaign contribution. This interpretation is simply wrong.” Randa added that had the Democrats succeeded in the case, it would mean “that any individual or group engaging in any kind of coordination with a candidate or campaign would risk forfeiting their right to engage in political speech.” Randa’s opinion is a significant victory for freedom of speech and political expression. Later in the day of Randa’s decision, a federal appeals court stayed his order pending further deliberation.” Examiner Editorial: First Amendment’s worst enemies are in nation’s capital

Global Warming

Will our “betters” do as they say we should do in the interest of “saving the planet” , or will it be just us common folks? “How would government start down the road to achieving zero carbon dioxide emissions from human activities? “The two dominant production sectors responsible for these emissions are electric power generation (coal and gas) and transportation (petroleum),” says the assessment. “Over the period 1963-2008,” says the assessment, “annual U.S. carbon dioxide emissions slightly more than doubled, because growth in emissions potential attributable to increases in population and GDP per person outweighed reductions contributed by lowered energy and carbon intensity and changes in economic structure.” In sum, America had too many people enjoying too much wealth while traveling too freely and using too much electricity. In a nation where government can de-develop the economy, stop population growth and redistribute wealth both inside and outside its borders, there will still be droughts, floods and hot summer nights. But there will be no freedom.” Government Will Control You Before It Controls Climate

Harry Reid

Click on over to watch the video. I truly believe, as the author of this article does, that Harry Reid has lost his mind. “Harry Reid’s obsession with the Koch brothers has made him a figure of fun, but frankly, it has gotten past the point where anyone is laughing. After Reid’s foray onto the Senate floor today, his family, friends and colleagues should be concerned about his mental health. This clip is only 30 seconds long, but it speaks volumes about Reid’s state of mind.” HARRY REID SINKS DEEPER INTO THE ABYSS

Harry Reid needs to find the marbles that he has apparently lost. “But I can’t recall another politician at the level of Senate Majority Leader or higher using his/her position to attack private citizens like this before Obama came to office. It’s one of the things the Obama administration has perfected, encouraged, and unleashed, and it’s one of the most pernicious of its developments.” Harry Reid’s war against the Kochs

Earth to our Nevada friends, please stop electing this man! “The Washington Post Glenn Kessler files a lame column checking on Reid’s “facts” and declaring them false, to the tune of three Pinocchios. According to Kessler, the science is settled and we must all accept that carbon emissions contribute to “climate change,” but Harry Reid is stretching the truth with his latest assault. It’s one of those lies politicians tell. That doesn’t come close to capture what is happening here, but Kessler does better than the New York Times, which adopts its usual approach to such a Democratic disgrace. In the world according to the Times, it’s not news and it’s not fit to print. The Times maintains radio silence. As Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid has brought his office to an unprecedented low. There is no lie he will not recite, no libel he will resist so long as it advances some narrow partisan purpose. If Reid had a shred of decency, he would be ashamed. But he doesn’t and he isn’t. Reid’s nonstop defamation of, and lying about, the Koch brothers is representative of the nadir to which Reid has sunk. It is frankly contemptible and disgusting.” REID RAGE

The Left

The Left won’t quit until they win… they’ll be back. “The relentless efforts by Wisconsin leftists to undermine Gov. Scott Walker and his fellow conservatives—by any means necessary—has taken another hit. In a 26-page decision, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa granted a preliminary injunction halting a politically-motivated John Doe investigation that probed campaign spending and fundraising by Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign, Eric O’Keefe, his Wisconsin Club for Growth (WCFG), and other conservative entities. “The Defendants must cease all activities related to the investigation, return all property seized in the investigation from any individual or organization, and permanently destroy all copies of information and other materials obtained through the investigation,” Randa wrote.” Judge Blocks Anti-Conservative Witch-Hunt in Wisconsin

The Left playing to the Low Information voters, again. “The real point of this exercise, of course, is to point out yet another way in which Republicans are ostensibly protecting their rich robber-baron buddies at the expense of our country’s poor, struggling future leaders, but the reality is that the federal government created this indeed tremendously problematic $1 trillion+ student loan bubble in the first place by offering indiscriminately available and inexpensive loans to anyone and everyone who might want them.” Sen. Warren: Hey, let’s help students refinance their loans by raising taxes on the wealthy!

Surprised by who did the study but not by the outcome! “Liberal billionaire George Soros’ foundation is among the most opaque think tanks in the country, according to a study funded by that foundation. The study, by a group called Transparify, ranked 35 U.S. think tanks based on the amount of financial information that they make publicly available. Soros’ Open Society Foundations rank dead last, earning zero stars out of a possible five. That designation is reserved for groups that dislose “no relevant or up-to-date information” on their finances.” Soros-Funded Study Ranks Soros Last in Transparency

The Left lives in La La Land. “The problem isn’t that the Left hates work; the problem is that they don’t understand the difference between productive work and unproductive work. The public sector (where many if not most leftists focus their lives, directly or indirectly) is not a productive enterprise. It consumes; it does not produce. It is a cost center, not a profit center. This is not to say that a public sector is bad or wrong or unnecessary (though I think it should be as small as possible) — it is simply to say that the public sector, generally speaking, does not produce wealth. It eats wealth. The larger the public sector, the less wealth that is produced (in market economies, anyway). [Snip] To sharpen my point: people who create wealth in the private sector tend to be far more productive than those in the public sector, all other things being equal. The left may natter on about “intangibles” and “externalities” in terms of creating value, but ultimately before a thing is consumed it must be produced(remember Say’s Law?). Products must be paid for with other products. An economy cannot function for long without productive labor.” Does the Left hate work?

The truth, and the Low Information voters are either too stupid or too lazy to care. “And since the 1980s, the progressives, which they now call themselves rather than communists, have slowly and successfully taken over the Democrat Party. Today their public terminology has become ever more benevolent. “We want to help to middle class families,” “we want fairness,” “we are problem solving” and “we want to help poor people” or just “change.” Fill in the blanks. But make no mistake, today, the Democrat Party is a radical socialist party. For example, their leader is considered perfect and God-like, he cannot be criticized. There is no opposition within the Democrat Party. Any opposition from the outside the Democratic Party is considered to be evil. This is because socialism is a religion, it’s faith. If you don’t believe in their human God and their fantasy of Utopia, paradise on earth, you are the enemy. And who is God’s enemy? The devil. So, of course, you are the devil and you are evil because you oppose the one true God, the God on earth.” Utopia and the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy

Full blown ramming speed. “In the U.S., the politics of the left versus the right rolls on with the predictability of traffic jams at the George Washington Bridge. It’s a lot of honking. Until now. All of a sudden, the left has hit ramming speed across a broad swath of American life—in the universities, in politics and in government. People fingered as out of line with the far left’s increasingly bizarre claims are being hit and hit hard.” Obama Unleashes the Left: How the government created a federal hunting license for the far left.

Money in Politics

This is definitely something we all should know. “An ultra-secretive left-wing money machine for super rich radicals is bringing more representatives of Big Labor into the fold in order to prevent the likely Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate this November. Thanks to a Democracy Alliance member’s oversight, Americans are getting a sense of what the nation’s wealthy left-wingers have in store for the fall elections and beyond. As Lachlan Markay of the Washington Free Beacon reported, leftist billionaire George Soros’s son Jonathan left behind a partial membership list of the Democracy Alliance at a meeting in a fancy Chicago hotel last week. The names on the document suggest that organized labor is becoming increasingly influential within the left-wing plutocrats’ invitation-only club.” Big Labor Taking Over Soros Piggybank

The Obama Administration

Tell me again why our Jewish friends feel so comfortable as Democrats? “Senior Obama administration officials have escalated a secret media war to discredit Israel in the press, providing highly critical anonymous quotes and negative information about the Jewish state in a bid to blame it for the recent collapse of peace talks with the Palestinians. Multiple sources in both the United States and Israel confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon that Middle East envoy Martin Indyk again served as the anonymous source for a recent interview in the Israeli press that lambasted Israel, blamed it for the failure of peace talks, and predicted that Israel needs to face another wave of Palestinian terrorism before it will make peace.” White House Escalates Secret Media War Against Israel: Obama administration continues to bash Israel over peace process

Seeking power over principle. “How sad it is that Power has apparently come to personify all she once condemned: She is happy to posture and to preach, but wholly unable or unwilling to sacrifice her ambition. She sees herself as a future secretary of state and so doesn’t want to make waves, or at least big waves. But if ethnic cleansing reaches genocidal levels in Syria, that’s just the price that will have to be paid.” Why Doesn’t Samantha Power Resign?

This was foretold even before Obamacare passed, by Rush Limbaugh, and many others. “One did not have to be UM law professors to see this coming. We have pointed out these perverse incentives in the employer mandate since before Democrats put the ACA up for a vote. Barack Obama and his supporters insisted that “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan,” based in large part on the assumption that businesses would simply eat the exploding costs of mandate health insurance. That, however, ignores the efficiency process and cost-benefit analysis that any business with a survival instinct uses. If it’s cheaper to pay the fine and dump the coverage, the only incentive that employers have to do otherwise is strictly competitive. And that will only last as long as the competition doesn’t make the same move. Once the first few employers looking to gain a tactical advantage on costs make the decision to get rid of that overhead, everyone else will follow to negate that advantage — and to push those costs off onto the federal government. That will make a hash of the carefully managed cost analyses offered by ObamaCare supporters, and subsidy payments will explode far past the ability of revenues within the ACA to keep pace. By the way, we should start seeing this phenomenon in just a few months. Even though the White House pushed the open-enrollment date for 2015 to mid-November to avoid having an ObamaCare shock just before the election, these businesses have to decide on whether to keep coverage as part of their budgeting process for the next year — and that will take place long before November 15th. Employees will start noticing that their employers aren’t holding their usual private-sector open enrollments on October 1st, even if employers wait to give them the bad news until November. That will not motivate voters to rush out and support Democrats, to say the least.” Kaiser: Employers getting ready to dump workers into ObamaCare

Stop the insanity in November, PLEASE! “It is time for Congress to do more to call Obama out on his lawlessness. But it’s also time to wipe the slate clean. It’s time for Obamacare opponents to win the Senate, pass a well-conceived conservative alternative, and send it to Obama. Under such an alternative, health costs would drop, liberty would be secured, and anyone who wants to buy health insurance would be able to do so. After Obama vetoes that effort at real reform, it will set up a clear choice for the citizenry: Do we want a subsequent president who will continue to do everything possible — both within and without the law — to prop up Obamacare’s failed 2,700 pages of federal largess, or one who will sign legislation that simultaneously repeals Obamacare and replaces it with a well-conceived conservative alternative? Polling indicatesAmericans overwhelmingly support the latter course of action.” More Lawlessness on Obamacare

Duplications… “The existence of some significant number of duplicate enrollments isn’t a surprise to anyone who’s been following Obamacare’s implementation process. While Healthcare.gov’s front end was collapsing over the first few months, many would-be enrollees’ sign-ups were sucked into the website’s black hole. Unsure about whether any of their information had been transmitted, consumers were encouraged to go though the process again. Some did so multiple times. The screenshot in that tweet comes from a report prepared by America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) for Congress. It confirms that “many” of the sign-ups being celebrated as “enrollments” are in fact various iterations of the same person’s enrollment efforts. Phil asks “how do you not even [de-duplicate]?” The answer is pretty straightforward: The online “reconciliation” system that would perform this Herculean task through automation is still under construction — and may not be ready for months (beyond the eight months that have already elapsed). That’s why the administration’s enrollment statistics are useless in the aggregate. They just manufactured the largest-sounding number possible and heralded it as exciting proof that the “law is working” and the “debate is over.” Much of the media blindly repeated the number, some going so far as to pant excitedly about an Obamacare “winning streak.” As we noted earlier in the week, the American people have obstinately declined to hop aboard that bandwagon.” Confirmed: Many of Obamacare’s ‘Eight Million Enrollments’ are Duplicates

President Obama

Our pandering president. “During his speech Wednesday, Obama complained that Republicans had increased “cynicism and discouragement” about government by blocking Democratic legislation. “The problem is, is that for the folks worth fighting for–for the person who’s cleaning up that house or hotel, for the guy who used to work on construction but now has been laid off–they need us,” he said. He elaborated they they don’t need them “because they want a handout, but because they know that government can serve an important function in unleashing the power of our private sector.” Obama blamed Republicans for discouraging Democratic voters, which he described as “younger” and “more likely to be minority.” “And because they’re more likely to be struggling, they’re not always paying attention when the president–presidential candidate isn’t on the ballot,” Obama stated. “ PRESIDENT OBAMA AT BEL-AIR FUNDRAISER: AVERAGE WORKERS ‘NEED US’

When things get tough, the tough go fundraising. “For months now Barack Obama has been saying he’s run his last political campaign. Uh-huh. If you believe Obama would give up his favorite pastime just to focus on the nation’s business and because he’s not a candidate, then you can keep your health plan. Period. In good times and bad, Obama is out there raking in the money for himself or the party or congressional campaign committees. You may recall, the day after the four Benghazi murders, he was fundraising in Vegas. The same day as the most recent Fort Hood shooting memorial service, he was fundraising in Houston. And Wednesday after a quick survey of Arkansas tornado damage, Obama was fundraising. In California, of all places. Obama doesn’t even make a pretense of listening or speaking to real voters there. For the man who’s presided over a steep jump in income inequality, the golden state is merely the nation’s most populous ATM full of faithful, gullible rich folks.” What a desperate Obama is telling rich Hollywood pals these days

Senator Ted Cruz

Click on over to see all 76 of Obama’s lawless actions. “’Of all the troubling aspects of the Obama presidency, none is more dangerous than the President’s persistent pattern of lawlessness, his willingness to disregard the written law and instead enforce his own policies via executive fiat,’ Cruz stated in the report’s introductory remarks. “President Obama has openly defied [rule of law] by repeatedly suspending, delaying, and waiving portions of the laws that he is charged to enforce. When President Obama disagreed with federal immigration laws, he instructed the Justice Department to cease enforcing the laws. He did the same thing with federal welfare law, drug laws, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act,” Cruz wrote. ‘In the more than two centuries of our nation’s history, there is simply no precedent for the White House wantonly ignoring federal law and asking others to do the same.’” Ted Cruz Releases Definitive List of 76 ‘Lawless’ Obama Actions

We’ve got a terrific line up for our annual Christmas program. First up will be the Ignite Barbershop Quartet. Ignite began singing together after a quartet matching party in November 2015. They are all Champion members of Region 21’s Scottsdale Chorus and they will be singing for us!

After lunch, Congressional District 6 congressman, Representative David Schweikart, will talk to us about what’s happening in Washington DC, and provide us with a status of the Tax Bill working its way through the House of Representatives and Senate.

Finally, member Julia Graham will install our new 2018/2019 officers. We look forward to seeing you and be sure to bring a friend or two or three!